On Wednesday 19 November 2003 03:26 pm, David A. Bandel wrote:
On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:47:51 -0600
Andrew L. Gould [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Wednesday 19 November 2003 10:39 am, Matthew Carpenter wrote:
What is the key piece of MSOffice which is not readily available as
Open Source?
[snip]
To say that a front-end for database administration or queries is a
replacement for MS Access is to say that you haven't used all of the
facets of MS Access:
[snip Access plug]
All the above said, Access is a _toy_. If you need a database (of more
than about 100 rows) you really need a SQL database like PostgreSQL. It
does all you mentioned and more. It also supports multiple users
(hundreds of simultaneous selects), supports transactions, foreign keys,
outer joins, and is fast (particularly searches on indexed columns). It
is also ACID. I'm putting together yet another database and front end
for a gov't agency here. They'll use a web browser. I'm still writing
the Perl script to provide the various queries and inserts/updates. But
it will get thousands of entries per year.
If you want to see a _good_ web - postgresql app, try SQL-Ledger
(http://www.sql-ledger.com/).
Besides, OO supports ODBC queries of PostgreSQL. Poorly documented,
yes. But I have done it (once, and maybe never again; psql is a _lot_
easier, especially if views are properly constructed.)
Ciao,
David A. Bandel
David,
Your points are good. You're right, MS Access is not comparable to a **real**
database server. I use PostgreSQL on the back-end for the reasons you
mentioned. Access has, however, great utility as a flexible front-end for
applications or fast, complex, adhoc analysis. Existing query front-ends in
Linux usually fail the complexity criteria.
Of course, I may be the whining exception.
I didn't mean to be plugging MS Access -- I truly want a replacement. MS
Access and tax software are the 2 items that will keep a copy of Window on my
computer. (I encountered memory limit problems with Access via Crossover
Office on a PC with 1.5GB RAM.)
Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.
Andrew Gould
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